1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to tuning devices for musical instruments and singers, and more specifically, to electronic tuning devices for indicating the tuning of almost any type of musical instrument including band and orchestra instruments such as wind instruments along with stringed percussive instruments like guitars, pianos, harps, etc.; electronic musical instruments which have microphone pickups and amplifiers to generate acoustical sound vibrations in the air by speakers; and musical notes produced by a singer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Traditional tuning of instruments is often done with one or more tuning forks, or other accurate tone sources, and a trained ear. In this process, the artisan often uses the phenomenon of "beats" to fine tune the instrument. A beat is an apparent oscillation of the loudness of a perceived tone when that tone is produced by two simultaneous tones of nearly, but not exactly the same frequency. Beats occur at a frequency equal to the difference between the two generating frequencies. For example, if a tuning fork is vibrating at a frequency of 440 Hz (440 cycles per second or in musical terms an A note) and a piano string is simultaneously vibrating at a fundamental frequency of 443 Hz, a definite rising and falling in the volume of the perceived tone will occur at a rate of three cycles per second. As the two tones approach the same frequency the beat frequency will reduce to zero. At a beat frequency of zero there is simply no variation in the volume of the combined tone. When a beat frequency occurs there is no way to tell which of the two tones (the tuning fork or the piano) is the higher frequency. When a three Hertz beat occurs the technician can only be sure the string is three Hertz off from the standard tone. Whether the string is sharp or flat still had to be determined by ear. Many times a trial adjustment was made and if the beat got faster, the knowledge was gained that the adjustment was in the wrong direction. The traditional method of tuning instruments left a lot to be desired and was entirely dependent on the skill of the tuning technician.
An electronic tuner for musical instruments has been marketed by Sabine Musical Manufacturing Company, Inc. of Gainesville, Fl. since about 1987. For tuning traditional musical instruments, i.e. non-electronic instruments, the tuner is set on a table top and uses a built-in microphone to sense tones produced by the musical instruments. For tuning electronic instruments, a signal output from the instrument or amplifier is directly connected by a cable to the electronic tuner. The LED display of this prior art tuning device consists of a bottom row of twelve lights corresponding to the twelve musical notes in an octave, i.e. A, A# (Bn), B, C, C# (Db), D, D# (Eb), E, F, F# (Gb), G and G# (Ab). A separate top row of three lights is provided for indicating flat, in-tune or sharp tuning conditions, respectively. One of the twelve LEDs in the bottom row is lit to indicate the note of the incoming tone while one LED in the upper row is lit to indicate whether the incoming tone is in-tune, sharp (above the in-tune range), or flat (below the in-tune range). The flat and sharp error indicating lights are operated at blink rates proportional to the magnitude of error. During tuning the musician must constantly monitor both rows of LED's, and in the absence of such concentration, a change to the wrong note can be overlooked resulting in tuning of the instrument or string to the wrong note.
Electronic tuning devices of the above type generally have a relatively small in-tune range or window, for example plus or minus three or four cents, in order to prevent annoying beat frequencies and dissonance between tuned instruments. Such tuning devices are most suitable for string instruments such as guitar, piano, harp, etc. However, these tuners are generally not used in tuning band and orchestra instruments such as wind instruments including brass instruments and woodwinds like single and double reed instruments and flute type instruments. Only highly experienced or talented band and orchestra musicians can hold a tone within plus or minus four cents on wind instruments. There is a need for beginners and students in bands or orchestras, such as high school bands and orchestras, to have a low cost tuner producing a visual indication of the in-tune or out-of-tune condition of their instruments, particularly those playing wind instruments. Additionally there is a need for a similar tuner for indicating musical notes produced by singers during practice and the deviation of the vocal notes from standard musical notes.
The prior art, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,861,266, discloses a musical tuning instrument for persons of lesser skill, such as members of high school bands. The tuning instrument has selector switches for setting the frequency (note) and sensitivity. When sensitivity is set at the most sensitive position, a pattern of eight lit LEDs in a circular array of sixteen LEDs rotates once per second when the incoming tone is exactly one Hertz greater or less than the set frequency. At the least sensitive position, the one second rotation of the pattern occurs when the incoming tone is sixteen Hertz greater or less than the set frequency.